


Just, Human

by PlanetsBendBetweenUs



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Captain Swan Supernatural Summer, F/M, being human AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 18:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15055328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlanetsBendBetweenUs/pseuds/PlanetsBendBetweenUs
Summary: After her death, Emma wakes up in her home, unable to be seen or heard by anyone. She resigns herself to this lifeless existence until one day, two men move into the house she haunts - and somehow, they can see her. A ghost, a vampire, and a werewolf living under one roof, what could possibly go wrong? A Being Human AU





	Just, Human

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely @kmomof4 for being my beta even when I was writing at the very last minute! You’re a lovely, lovely human!

PART ONE

 

Emma doesn’t remember dying. She remembers standing in her kitchen. She remembers making hot chocolate and reaching for the cinnamon when the doorbell rang. She can’t remember anything beyond opening the door, but the confusion and the sense of being wrong, of being other, is something she’ll never forget. So is the fear that consumed her when she saw her own body lying lifeless on the floor, blood pooling on the wood and staining her hair and the grain. She’d been shot. Killed in the front entrance of her house. 

Her house - the big, stupid house she rented with Neal - the one they were supposed to raise a family and grow old in. She remembers how big and empty it felt in the weeks after her death, waiting for him to come home, to explain what the hell was going on and to make it better in that way he always did. She sat in that house alone, scared, unable to leave, trapped, unable to touch or move or feel anything for two weeks - hearing the phone ring but unable to answer it, seeing the mail slide through her door but unable to open it - until someone came by because the rent was late. It was a good thing too because the smell was starting to get to her.

Not many people can say they’ve been to their own wake but Emma is one of them. There’s nothing quite like watching one or two old coworkers shuffle in and out of the big, empty house trying to find kind words to say about you while you stand next to your own open casket. It was almost as strange as watching her own murder investigation. She did her best to try and follow along with the officers but after a day or two they stopped coming by the house. And she couldn’t turn the TV on to see if there was any new information.

Neal never came back.

It took the house three months to sell, which is surprising considering someone was killed there. Emma watched men and women walk in and out of the house that was supposed to be her home - the home she’d only just started to feel comfortable in and dared to add a few personal touches to. She spent days and nights worrying about what had happened to Neal. Had he been killed too? Was he trapped somewhere unable to get to her? Was he trying to find her killer? And that still, small voice inside of her whispered her worst fear. What if he left her just like everyone else did?

She listened to strangers go on about what a steal the house was but no one bought it. Good. She doesn't any of them here. She doesn't want to be here. And they must have sensed it. Many of the prospective buyers whispered about something they couldn’t put their finger on, something off - a presence - an unwelcoming one. Good. Emma prefers to be alone. She always has. It’s better this way. Alone. Forever. 

But this morning is different. She goes to the window of her room when she hears the car pulling into the driveway. She expects more house hunters but instead she sees a blue pickup truck, it’s bed packed with furniture and boxes. It’s then that she notices the SOLD sign on the lawn. 

Two men, one dark and one fair, step out and begin to unload the truck and Emma nudges the curtain a bit to get a better look. The dark one is heaving a box into his arms and heading for the door when something catches his eye and he looks up. Emma jumps back, trying to hide and it’s only then that she realises the curtain moved under her hand. 

She’s trying to wrap her mind around this when she hears the front door open and she makes her way as silently as possible to the top of the stairs. There are some habits she can’t manage to shake. She’s realized that she’s dead. She can’t deny that. She saw the body. But she always thought there would be something… else after. Or nothing. Either would be better than this. This… existence. Not life. She’s not living, she just… is. She can’t be seen. Her feet make no sounds as she walks over the floorboards that always creaked and Neal always insisted he would fix, but she still feels the need to hide, to tread lightly. Old habits die hard. Harder than she did anyway. And it’s those same habits that keep her perched at the top of the stairs, just out of sight of the men who are apparently moving into her house. 

She can’t help but watch them as they move about - dropping boxes and scuffing the floor with their boots. They don’t act like a couple and they don’t look like they should be friends. One is dressed head to toe in black denim and leather with dark hair and pale skin like some kind of goth emo boy. The other wears flannel and jeans and smiles more than anyone who’s moving has a right to. There’s something about them though. She can’t put her finger on it but watching them interact, she feels a pull towards them like she’s never felt before. 

She watches them for a long time, particularly amused when they argue at length about the placement of an old, worn-out couch in the living room. One thinks it looks more homie in the center of the room while the other thinks it’s more practical against the back wall. When they’ve brought the final box in, the dark one stands, arching his back and running a hand through his hair and Emma catches a glimpse of piercing blue eyes as they flick towards her. She jumps back again out of sight and she could swear she heard the floorboards creek. But that’s impossible. 

“Dave,” the emo boy says and in the one word Emma can hear a hint of an accent. “Want to go grab us some takeout and beers and I’ll unpack the kitchen so we can eat?” 

The one apparently called Dave agrees and pockets the truck keys before heading out. Once he’s left, the house is silent - so silent Emma is almost convinced she can hear the other man breathing from the top of the stairs. He stands unmoving for a moment before finally picking up one of the boxes marked ‘kitchen’ and heading around the corner out of sight. 

Carefully, Emma makes her way down the stairs, sneaking and making herself small the way she would were she approaching a perp. The living room leads into the kitchen through an archway and she makes her way to the wall that divides the rooms, pressing her back against it and holding her breath, but the only sounds are the clanking of dishes and the shuffling of cardboard. 

Feeling brave, Emma turns slowly until she can just peek around the wall at the man in her kitchen. He’s handsome there’s no doubt about it. Broad shoulders and a lean frame with a mop of black hair on his head and a scruff like he couldn’t be bothered to shave in the last month. But there’s something else about him. A feeling she gets. One that contradicts itself. There’s a vulnerability and an openness in the way he’s standing, like he wants to make himself less frightening than his wardrobe would suggest. But beneath it, power and danger radiate from him. It’s a confusing feeling - wanting to run away from and towards someone at the same time. Feeling safe with them and also sensing the immediate threat standing near them. He’s an enigma and Emma wants to solve it. 

“You know, you can come out.” His voice is soft and gentle when he speaks but Emma jumps when she hears it. She hasn’t been spoken to in months. Spoken around, spoken about, and even spoken through that one time…. But not spoken to. It’s strange and exciting and terrifying and Emma is so relieved she wants to cry. 

The man turns around slowly. He stands facing her like someone approaching a wounded animal but he’s looking at her. Right at her. Not past or behind her but into her eyes and Emma feels human for the first time in what feels like forever. He gives her an encouraging smile and a nod. “It’s alright,” he promises. 

She inches her way out from behind the wall, hesitant and feeling like her heart is about to burst out of her chest. She doesn’t want to get into the semantics of whether her heart is actually beating. 

“You can see me?” Her voice sounds strange to her own ears after having remained silent for so long. 

He smiles again and there’s a kindness to it. “Yes. I can see you.” 

“How?” It’s meant as a question but it comes out like a demand. His expression doesn’t falter. 

“I’m like you,” he explains. 

“You’re dead?” he almost laughs at this. 

“In a manner of speaking,” he chuckles. “My name is Killian, Killian Jones.” 

She notices that he doesn’t reach out to shake her hand and she wonders if she’s not the first dead person he’s encountered. 

“How can you see me?”

He doesn’t answer straight away, just looks at her for a moment before he shrugs, arms out. “I’m a vampire.” 

Emma scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Yeah okay, buddy. Been to a few too many Marilyn Manson concerts, huh?” 

Killian looks like he’s holding back a laugh. He looks at the floor, his hand coming up to scratch behind his ear. When he looks back up at her, his eyes are jet black, the blue and the whites swallowed by inky darkness and two fangs protrude from where his lips are pulled back over his teeth. 

She startles back. Holy shit. For a minute, she debates having an existential crisis about monsters being real but then realizes the truth of her own situation and thinks that vampire really isn’t much of a stretch from ghost. Okay then. Killian Jones, vampire. 

She steels herself, nodding, accepting, and his eyes and teeth return to normal. “Emma,” she tells him. “Emma Swan.”

“Ah,” he says, like this has just confirmed something. “You’re the woman who died here.” Emma crosses her arms over her chest, the reality of it still hard to deal with. “And you’ve been here the whole time?” Her lack of answer seems to be answer enough for him and his face softens a bit in sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he tells her. “That must have been difficult.” 

Emma shrugs so that she doesn’t cry, crossing her arms tighter. “I’m used to being alone,” she says and when Killian looks at her she sees herself reflected - another person used to being left alone, left behind, a lost boy. 

“Aye,” he says then pauses, looking at the floor, considering. “Being alone is good. Being alone is safe.” He pauses again then meets her eyes. “But take it from someone who tried being alone for a long time… people - others help. It makes it all feel more… human,” he finishes, looking at her like he knows her and maybe he does a little - the dead part of her anyway. 

“Listen,” he says and the somber mood is gone, his tone more professional than anything. “Dave and I can leave if you want. This is your home and we won’t tred where we aren’t wanted. But,” he adds and she can sense his hope that she’ll take his second offer. “If you let us, I think the three of us could really have a chance at something great here.” 

There’s no falsehood in his voice, no slick conman’s lie to get his way, no manipulation. Just honest to goodness hope and Emma hasn’t had hope in her life for a long time. 

She looks at him for a long time. “Okay,” she tells him and Killian beams. 

“Okay,” he agrees. 

At that moment, the fair haired man called Dave walks back in, carrying two full plastic bags in one hand and a six pack in the other. He stops dead in his tracks when he spots Emma standing next to Killian in the kitchen. 

“Oh,” he starts. “Hello. I didn’t know we were expecting company.” 

Killian grins at his friend and indicates Emma with a wave of his hand. “Dave, meet Emma Swan.” He turns to her then with a shit-eating grin. “David’s a werewolf.” 

Emma can hear David’s outraged “ _ Killian, what the hell!” _ and she’ll process that new information later, but her eyes are locked on Killian’s as his smile only grows at his friend’s panic before he goes over to David to explain the situation. Watching the two of them, their friendship and the bond they so clearly have, Emma thinks that just maybe this really could work. 

 

PART TWO

“Where’s David?” Emma asks walking into the living room carrying two mugs of hot chocolate. Killian is reclining back on the couch, booted feet stretched out onto the coffee table where empty and half-drunk mugs of hot chocolate are littered about. It’s been five months since the boys moved in and every day Emma finds herself feeling more and more human. A month after they came into her life, she was able to touch things. Nothing big - just nudging curtains, creaking floorboards, and once sending a dinner plate flying across the room in a fit of anger. A month after that, she was able to pick up the dinner plate without anger and ever since things have just continued to improve. 

Practice. That’s what Killian keeps saying. He’s convinced that if she focuses, and pushes herself a little more each day, that eventually she’ll be almost as corporeal as she used to be. She’s not an expert on ghosts but he claims to have met a few in his long life so she’s trying to trust him - something new for her. 

“He’s not coming home tonight. It’s his time of the month,” Killian explains distractedly, looking around her at the TV. It makes her want to smile that they have to look around her - being in the way isn’t something she ever expected to be again. 

“Oh, right,” she says, standing awkwardly with the two mugs. It’s taken a little while for them all to figure out each other's quirks. Like that David turns into a wolf once a month on the full moon. Despite Emma and Killian’s insistence that he can do it at home and he won’t scare them, he prefers to use the prison cell in the old abandoned part of the sheriff’s station where he works. How he manages to keep his job as a cop Emma will never know. But he insists that he can keep those two aspects of his life separate - David and the wolf. He’s something she aspires to be - so calm and happy and collected despite his unfortunate, supernatural circumstances. But there’s a darkness to him too - the part of him that still grieves the loss of his fiance, Katharine, and his mother when he was turned and left them for their own safety. 

Killian is another story. Emma was shocked to find out how old he is. Like, really old. A couple hundred years old. Piece by piece he’d revealed his past to her. She’d wondered about the etiquette of asking him how he’d been turned but she figured he knew how she died so it was only fair. He’d been in the royal navy when he’d fallen in love with the wife of an ancient vampire - a creature that went by the name of Gold - and she with him. In retaliation, the monster had killed Killian’s love and turned Killian into the very monster he despised. It was the ultimate punishment - an eternity without her. After that, he’d left the navy and taken up the life of a bloodthirsty pirate - in the most literal sense of the word. That’s right. She lives with an honest to god pirate. A vampire pirate who hasn’t drunk blood out of anything but a blood bag in over two years. His job at the hospital comes in handy.

Emma, well, Emma makes hot chocolate. Lots of it. All the time. She can’t drink it but it was her routine when she was alive, making it at the end of a long day or when she was feeling low, so now she makes it for David and Killian who drink every single cup without complaint. She knows they’re humoring her but she can’t help herself. She keeps making it. It helps. But now she’s made two and she’s reminded that while she can hold the cup in her hand, she can’t feel the warmth of it seeping through the ceramic or taste the delicious milk chocolate and cinnamon. 

Killian stops looking behind her and clearly notices something in her face because he instantly sits up and grabs both mugs out of her hands. Pouring the contents of one half-full mug into the other, he sets the first down among the mess on the table and takes a sip from the second. Emma smiles thankful before taking a seat next to him on the sofa. 

“I gotta say, that’s one thing I don’t miss,” Emma tells him after a few minutes of sitting in companionable silence watching whatever the hell old movie Killian has on this time. He raises an eyebrow at her in confusion and Emma explains. “You know, old time of the month… perks of being dead?” 

Killian nearly chokes on his drink as he laughs at her musings. He shoots her a cheeky grin like he always does when he knows he’s about to say something ‘vampire-y’ that will make her laugh or want to hurl. This time it’s both. 

“Hmm,” he hums. “That’s always been my favorite time of a woman’s month if you understand my meaning.” He watches her with that shit eating smile. 

It takes Emma a second before what he’s saying clicks and she lets out a sound between a laugh and a shriek of disgust, smacking him on the arm. Neither of them feel it but the illusion of contact is nice. “Oh my god! You’re disgusting!” she tells him and Killian just laughs, waggling his eyebrows. They fall back into their comfortable silence, Audrey Hepburn lighting up the screen in front of them. 

“What  _ do _ you miss?” Killian asks suddenly. Emma flinches at the abrupt question. It wasn’t asked harshly but suddenly she’s flooded with all the things she misses most in the world. Leaving the house. The sunshine on her face. Being warm. Being touched. 

“Food,” she says after a moment. It’s half the truth. She misses food. Like  _ really _ misses it. Killian raises an eyebrow at her and she argues her point before he can see through her like he always does. “It’s true! I can smell it all and see it all and even touch it but I can’t eat it and it sucks.” She almost pouts saying the last bit and realizes that there may be more truth than she even knew in her statement. She misses eating. 

Killian contemplates her for a second then nods. “What was your favorite?”

“Onion rings,” she answers without hesitation. 

He thinks for another moment. “Okay.” 

And then he’s up and walking out the front door. In broad daylight. That was something that took a while to get used to. What was and wasn’t real from the folklore and teen fiction she’d read about his kind. Sunlight doesn’t hurt him but he  _ is _ sensitive to it - hence the dark sunglasses and head to toe covering at all times. He has a reflection but doesn't show up in photographs, and he needs blood to survive but can drink it “bottled” as he likes to put it - a way to avoid detection and accidentally killing in bloodlust. The stake thing is real too. She doesn't like to think about that.

Emma’s left on the couch, watching the T.V. alone. She’s used to it. She knows they have to go to work to survive. They have to eat even if she doesn’t. But for the most part they make a point of being home when they can be. She’s gotten used to it and Killian just up and leaving hurts a tiny bit more than it should. Because she can’t. She can’t leave. She’s stuck here in this house, the house where she died. Killian insists that she can leave. That he knows a lot of ghosts who wander the streets of Boston or New York or London or wherever else he’s lived in his long life. But every time Emma’s tried, every time she gets close to that door and opens it with her slightly more corporeal hand… she freezes. She becomes consumed with the overwhelming fear that something dangerous is out there. That leaving would be dangerous. That there’s something holding her here and if she walked out she might just float away. Last time she tried the feeling had almost choked her and suddenly her hand had gone through the doorknob rather than around it and she’d been right back where she started five months ago. 

The movie is just reaching it’s romantic climax when Killian walks back in through the door. In his hand he’s brandishing a greasy paper bag. 

“What’s that?” she asks but before he answers she can smell it. Onion rings. She almost moans at the smell. “That’s not fair!” she tells him, actually mad at him for such a dick move as eating her favorite food in front of her. It’s very unlike him. 

“They’re not for me,” he tells her like she’s being silly. “They’re for you.”

“What?”

“You’re going to eat them. Well, taste them anyway.” 

Emma looks at him like he’s crazy. “I can’t taste anything.” She doesn’t understand why she has to explain this to him. He knows. Killian gives her a patient smile.

“Swan, when I was first turned, food tasted like dirt in my mouth. All I wanted was blood and everything else was just something that didn’t taste like what I was craving.” She watches him, wondering where he’s going with this. “I had to learn to like food again - how to be satisfied with things other than a jugular.”

“Gross.”

He smiles. “So, what do you say?” He dangles the bag between them. “Wanna give it a try?” She watches him and the bag for a long time. It smells so good and maybe if he’s right… oh god, if she could taste food again that would be a game changer. 

“Alright, Twilight, show me what you’re talking about.” 

Killian rolls his eyes at the nickname but plops the bag down in her lap. She can’t feel it there but it doesn’t go through her and she smiles for a second, appreciating it. He smiles too because he knows. He always knows. 

He slowly unrolls the paper bag and Emma immediately reaches in for one but he smacks her hand away. 

“Hey!”

“Patience, love,” he tells her. “Take a second. Breathe it in.” 

She looks at him like he’s insane. Surely he must be joking. He wants her to sit here and breathe in a bag of onion rings. But his look is absolutely serious so she begrudgingly does as he asks. Emma makes a show of sticking her nose in the bag and inhaling deeply. Her mouth instantly waters and she lets out a groan. She looks up at Killian who’s grinning like a smug idiot. 

“Good right?” he asks and she only nods. “What’s it smell like?”

She raises a brow at him like he’s dumb. “Onion rings,” she deadpans. 

“Come on, you can do better than that. Take another wiff. What do you smell?” 

Reluctantly, she goes back in and breathes deep. Killian edges closer to her on the sofa. She knows if she were alive she would feel his thigh pressed up against her own and she wonders if he would be warm or cold like in books. Focus. Right. Smells. 

“Onions,” she tells him and he allows it.

“What else?” Emma really tries to concentrate. He’s sitting very close and it’s throwing her off for some reason. She can’t feel him but she can feel some kind of… aura? Is that what it is? It’s radiating off of him and she can almost feel it as though it were physical. It’s like a heat. Not intense but gentle and creeping, like a blush. 

She breathes again. “Grease?” he nods encouragingly and she keeps trying to focus, breaking down what she smells. “Fried bread. Oil and spices… paprika?” He’s smiling when she looks up and it’s so blinding she has to close her eyes to draw her attention back to the bag of onion rings and away from her racing heart. “Something sweet. Like they used sweet onions maybe?” 

She looks at him again and his smile is still lighting up his whole face. She forgets sometimes how handsome he is. She should be used to it. He reaches into the bag and if Emma pretends really hard she can imagine she can feel his hand moving the contents around in her lap. Her stomach flutters as if she did. 

He emerges victorious with an onion ring and holds it out to her. She takes it from him, skeptical but trusting.

“What does it feel like?” Her heart drops. 

“I can’t feel it.” 

“What should it feel like?” he asks her, encouraging. 

Emma pauses. Closing her eyes she tries to remember the feeling of her favorite food between her fingers. Crispy. But also wet - not like water but an oily wet. The kind of grease from good fast food that coats your fingers. Soft underneath, like she could break the crispy outer layer easily if she wanted to. The onion inside would be tender and sweet. She brings it to her nose and smells again. Crispy and greasy and sweet and savoury and she can’t help herself - she takes a bite. 

The onion ring doesn’t break under her teeth but she tastes it. It’s faint, like there’s something coating her tongue and preventing the full taste but it’s there. She smells and she feels and she tastes! She feels… she feels so human. She feels real.

Emma lets out a jubilant cry that’s nearly a sob. She turns to Killian, so unbelievably dazed and happy and desperate to tell him what it tasted like. It’s too late by the time she opens her eyes and she doesn’t notice how close he is until she’s turned her head and accidentally bumped her lips against his own. 

She jumps back, embarrassed, and Killian stares at her for a moment before he bursts out laughing at the absurdity of the situation. It’s contagious and Emma laughs herself silly over the cliche romantic comedy moment they just had. It was ridiculous and funny and they’re friends and she’s happy that he can laugh it off. 

Still laughing, Killian brings his fingers to his lips and looks at her in happy surprise. “I felt that!” he tells her. “It was faint, like kissing someone with numb lips but I felt it.” 

Emma smiles, a bit awkward but also just so happy. One afternoon with Killian and she feels more human than she has in a long time. She shoves him amicably and tells him to shut up but the truth of it is - she felt it too. 

 

PART THREE

A month later, Emma and Killian find themselves in the same spot they were in the last full moon: curled up on the couch with a bag of onion rings between them. Ever since Emma learned to taste again she hasn’t stopped. The production of hot chocolate has doubled and Killian and David are sent out regularly for groceries and take out. Once, Killian got upset and told her that she couldn’t keep demanding they buy her food that she wasn’t eating. It was going bad because they couldn’t keep up with eating it all. That had set off an episode of flying plates and face vamping until David had come home and broken up the fight with his calm, always diplomatic tone. They reached a compromise. They would share their food with her and she could have a say in groceries but no demands of takeout at three in the morning. 

Tonight though, it was just the two of them - David back at the abandoned sheriff’s station and another Audrey Hepburn movie on and Killian had gotten home from his shift at the hospital with a grin and a bag of greasy onion rings from Granny’s. It’s nice. Sitting near each other, sharing the meal with the movie the only light source in the dark room. She misses David on nights like this. They’ve become a family in the six months they’ve lived together and it’s always strange to be without one of them. David also helps to cool the strange heat she always seems to feel coming from Killian whenever they’re too close and too alone. 

“Do you think it scares him?” Emma asks and Killian doesn’t even jump when her voice breaks the silence. He doesn’t have to ask what she’s talking about. Emma has been careful not to ask David too much about his monthly transformation - with the exception of one awkward conversation where she was afraid the hot chocolate would kill him and he’d had to explain that he wasn’t a dog - she knows how sensitive he is about it. He likes to think of it as something that happens to him sometimes rather than a part of who he is. 

“I would be worried if it didn’t,” he answers. “I’ve only seen the transformation once before but it’s not something you forget.” Emma looks at him, waiting for him to elaborate. Killian rarely speaks without thinking and she’s gotten used to the slow, considered way he answers her questions - even the unspoken ones. “Every bone in his body breaks and then reshapes itself into something different and foreign. He feels every second of it. A human man would die or at least lose consciousness from the pain but the wolf keeps him alive and awake for all of it. I’ve seen a lot of horrible things but nothing like what he goes through every single month. If it didn’t scare him…” 

He doesn’t finish his thought but he doesn’t have to. Emma has tears in her eyes thinking about her friend in that kind of pain. She wraps herself up tighter in the sweater she’d died in, curling her feet up under herself and turning her attention back to the T.V. It’s a second before she feels Killian’s hand on her knee, a comforting gesture, and another second before she realizes that she actually felt it. 

Her eyes snap to his at the same time his do and she’s about to ask if he felt her as strongly as she felt him when the door bursts open, the nob banging so loudly against the wall that it leaves a dent. David stumbles in, curled in on himself, clutching his ribs. He’s pale. His face looks drawn and sweaty and it’s twisted in anguish.

“David!” Emma jumps up to help - she doesn’t know how but she has to. “What -” before she can finish her question, David lets out a scream like nothing she’s ever heard before. It echoes through the house, raw and so human as he collapses to his hands and knees on the hall floor. 

Killian is up in a second, picking up his friend and leading him inside. Emma rushes to shut the door. “Dave,” he says loudly, trying to reach him through the fog in his eyes. “Dave, what happened? Why aren’t you at the sheriff's station?” 

David’s answer comes out in short clipped sounds through strangled moans and laboured breathing. “They’re. Rebuilding. Nowhere. To go.” he tries to explain. 

“Dave,” Killian says, taking his friends face in his hand. “You’re going to have to do it here.”

“No!” David shouts either from pain or determination. Emma is frozen in place. Unable to do anything but watch. Her heart in her throat. She can’t handle it. She has to, for her friend, but she doesn’t know if she’s strong enough. “Not. here.” David pants. 

“It’s too late to go anywhere else. I know you want to keep it separate but there’s nowhere else to go. There’s no time.” 

David looks like he’s about to protest more but he’s cut off by another scream and he collapses to the floor in a ball. Emma rushes to him, hands touching his face in an attempt to soothe and she doesn’t even care right now about the fact that she can feel the clammyness of his skin - all she hopes is that he can feel her and that it helps. His back bows suddenly and his face snaps to her and it’s not David anymore. His eyes are yellow and his teeth have morphed into razor sharp fangs. Emma can hear the bones cracking - can see them moving under his skin and it makes her sick to her stomach. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that this should happen to him. 

“David…” she starts but Killian jumps into action as their friend’s skin begins to morph into fur, his face elongating, his back contorting as his legs bend the wrong way. Tears fall freely from her eyes as Killian pulls her to her feet. 

“It’s going to happen here,” he tells her. “We only have a few minutes. Lock all the doors and the windows. Close the blinds,” he orders as he starts to do so. “Turn on the stereo. Loud. Hopefully the neighbors will think we’re having a party.” Emma rushes to do as she’s told, blasting music from the fancy stereo system David bought. They finish locking the house up in less than a minute and Killian is gathering up his collection of Audrey Hepburn DVDs before he turns to her. “Anything you want to save?” he asks and Emma can’t think of anything. There’s nothing in this house she cares about except the two men who have become her family. But they can’t save David. They can just help him be safe and keep his secret. 

She shakes her head and Killian nods. “If you were ever going to leave this house, now would be an ideal time,” he tells her. Emma shakes her head again. She can’t. Not just because she doesn’t think she physically can but also… 

“I can’t leave him.” 

Killian looks at her like he knows. Like he always does. She knows that he wishes he could stay but he can’t. Vampires and werewolves - sworn enemies. David in this state would kill him without a second thought. The two are only friends because they’ve managed to hold so tightly to their humanity. Hang on to their goodness the way Killian did when he came across a gang of vampires beating the life out of a new werewolf. She knows he wishes he could stay.

“Don’t worry,” she promises and it’s her turn to take care of him after all these months of him taking care of her, of both of them taking care of her. “I’ve got him.” Killian nods, jaw clenching and darts out the front door. Emma rushes to lock it before falling back on her knees in front of David. 

He looks more wolf than human now. It’s not like in Twilight, she thinks. He doesn’t look like a beautiful wolf. It’s dark and twisted, half human half animal with claws and teeth and skin stretched to its limit over bones that have grown too big for the body they’re in. There’s nothing romantic about it. It’s a curse and it’s cruel and it kills her to watch him whimpering on the floor of their living room. 

Emma strokes his face until finally the whimpering stops and it’s replaced with heavy breathing, a hint of a growl of exhaustion. “David?” she asks tentatively when he’s quiet for a long time. His eyes snap to hers at the sound and Emma screams as he lunges at her, attacking. He moves like a rabid dog, looking to bite and tear and rip flesh. Emma runs across the room and he whirls around, stalking her like an animal with its prey. 

“David,” she begs, hoping there’s a piece of him still in there but it’s clear there’s not. He lunges and Emma squeezes her eyes shut. When she opens them again, she’s perched at the top of the stairs, that spot out of sight where she watched the boys come into her life, come into her home. And now she’s watching one of them tear it to shreds. Emma closes her eyes and braces herself for a long night. 

 

***

The transformation back is more peaceful. He falls asleep before his body shrinks back to its natural size, the bones going back to the way they should be and the fur falling away to reveal the human beneath. It’s over. The entire first floor of their home has been ripped to shreds. The sofa faired better than she’d have expected - the cushions shredded but the frame unbroken - but books and cups and CDs and electronics are scattered in pieces across the scratched up floor. And in the middle of it, David lies naked and vulnerable on the hardwood. 

Gingerly, Emma makes her way over and drapes the least-ruined blanket she can find over him. She runs her fingers through his hair, glad that it’s back to its lovely blonde shade rather than the dark coarse hair of the wolf he’d been last night. He looks peaceful now, sleeping, and Emma doesn’t want to wake him. She goes to the door to unlock it, knowing Killian wouldn’t have gone far. When she looks out the window she sees him curled up on their front steps, leaning against the doorframe asleep. She opens the door and leans next to him. Their shoulders graze and he wakes up slowly. He smiles sleepily when he sees her.

“Morning,” he mumbles. Emma gives him her best attempt at a smile and curls herself in further. Killian glances over her shoulder into the wreckage of the house. “How is he?” he asks and that’s another thing she loves about him. He doesn’t give a shit about the house. Those things can be replaced (except maybe his treasured movie collection) but David can’t and it warms her heart to know he feels the same. 

“Asleep,” Emma tells him and Killian nods. 

“We should let him keep sleeping. He had a hard night,” he states the obvious. His hand comes up and caresses her face and Emma’s breath catches at how solid and warm and  _ there _ his fingers feel against her cheek. “How are  _ you _ ?” he asks, holding her eyes, his own full of concern and something else. 

Emma brings her hand up over his and she’s pretty sure he’s too sleepy to realize how momentous this simple touch is. Because it is. She feels something for the first time in ages. And it’s Killian. He’s not a ghost of a feeling or a memory. It’s new and so real and so human. And he’s warm. She’d missed warmth. She squeezes his fingers once before moving to get up. 

“I’m okay. We should get this cleaned up though,” she tells him. “It’ll kill him to wake up and see what the wolf did to his house.” 

Killian looks at her hesitantly. “It’s a part of him, Emma.” 

“Not if he doesn’t want it to be,” she answers firmly. Killian looks at her a moment longer before aquiessing and following her into the house.

Hours later, David wakes, looking confused and disoriented before his eyes focus on Emma and Killian. He looks down at the blanket covering his body and Emma can see him piecing back together the events of last night. She knows he blacks out during the transformation but he can remember the moments leading up to it. Realization dawns on him and he stands, thankfully remembering to bring the blanket with him, and looks around the room. It’s bare. Clean, but bare except for a solitary couch that Emma spent time dutifully sewing the stuffing back into while Killian took the garbage bags full of their ruined things to the dump a town over. She sits on it now, a mug of hot chocolate to offer as soon as he’s ready for it.

“No,” he says and it’s almost a whine. “No. What did it do?”

“It’s alright, mate,” Killian says gently. “It’s just stuff. We’ll replace it all. But I’m not going to pottery barn. I don’t care how much you like their accent pillows.” He’s trying to make a joke, to lighten the grim situation but it doesn’t work. David looks at the cleaned up carnage his hand scraping his hair back.

“No, no…” he moans. 

“Dave,” Killian says more sternly. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay!” David snaps and Killian and Emma both reel back from the force of it. “None of this is okay! This thing just lives inside me and it destroys everything. It’s taken everything and it’s never going to stop!” David roars the last bit before stomping up to his room. Killian watches him go in surprise before turning to Emma. Usually their friend is much better at keeping his cool and this outburst is out of character. 

They hear a door slam upstairs and Killian falls back onto the sofa beside her with a thud. “What’s gotten into him?” he asks, still looking like he’s reeling from the interaction. 

“He met a girl,” Emma says, running her finger around the rim of her mug. 

“What?” Killian asks, shocked. “He told you that?” 

“He didn’t have to,” Emma shrugs. She hands him the mug of cocoa and he accepts it out of habit. “Haven’t you noticed how he’s been dressing lately at work? He tucked in his shirt yesterday. And he’s been leaving early to go to Granny’s every morning before work.”

“He said he was getting coffee…” Killian says.

“Have you ever seen David drink coffee?” Emma asks, raising a brow. Killian’s eyes widen in surprise. They both know David is strictly a tea man and he has repeatedly referred to the tea at Granny’s as ‘puddle water’. 

“So he’s going to see a girl?” Killian asks, taking a sip of the drink and running his hand through his hair. 

“Makes sense,” Emma says with another shrug. 

Killian sits back further, like this news has actually knocked him back. “Well, bloody hell. Dave’s got a crush.” He smirks and Emma is about to warn him not to tease David when his expression morphs into something warmer. “Good. This could be really good for him.” He turns to her and Emma smiles back at his happiness for their friend moving on with his life after years of self-hatred. Emma prays last night won’t set him back too far. “You must have been very good at your job,” Killian tells her.

Emma smiles, remembering the rush she used to get out of chasing down perps. Putting bits of information together to figure out where they would be and when. “The best,” she says and Killian laughs, handing her back the mug so they can share. Emma wants to laugh. Just two dead people sipping hot cocoa out of the same mug. They’ll go check on David later, they know he’ll come back to them. But for right now, this moment of surrealism is ridiculous and it’s perfect.

Later, when Killian has gone to work and Emma is watching some awful reality show, David comes downstairs looking cleaned up and a bit abashed. 

“Hey, you,” she says in greeting, moving to make room for him on the couch. 

He joins her. “Hey, you,” he answers. And just like that, they’re back to normal. They sit in silence and David doesn’t even complain about her choice of T.V. Finally, he speaks. “You were there last night, weren’t you?” he asks.

“Yeah,” is all she says, letting him lead the conversation. 

“I felt you?” he says, like it’s a question, like he’s not sure it’s possible. Emma bites her lip to fight back her smile. Slowly she reaches forward and brings her hand towards his face - then flicks him in the forehead. 

“Ow!” he says in offended shock, then his whole face changes, confusion first and then excitement. “That hurt! I felt it! Oh my god! Emma!” She laughs at his ridiculousness as he wraps her up in one of the big bear hugs she’s seen him give Killian but had never gotten to have for herself. Not really. But it’s so nice. This part of friendship. She missed it. 

“This is amazing!” he says, letting her go. “Does Killian know?” 

Emma shakes her head. “Not yet. He’s been a bit distracted.” 

David nods and it’s a bit pained. “I have to apologize to him.”

“It’s okay,” Emma promises him. “He gets it.” 

David smiles and wraps an arm around her shoulder. Emma lets herself be cuddled. Missing that feeling of closeness and trust.

“Thank you, by the way,” he says after a moment. “For staying as long as you did. It helped.” 

“Don’t mention it,” Emma answers. 

They sit comfortably for a moment until David, who somehow got hold of the remote, changes the channel to a football game. 

“Hey!” Emma shouts, sitting up and reaching for the controller. “I was watching that!” 

David smirks. “The Bachelor, Emma? Really? I’m not that grateful.” 

Emma glares at him. “You’re forgetting I can hurt you now.” 

David only laughs.

When Killian comes back from work that morning, he’s dead on his feet - no pun intended. Emma watches him stumble in, barely acknowledging their presence as he makes his way up the stairs to his bedroom and she decides to hold off telling him about the fact that she’s now apparently corporeal. The poor guy barely slept the night before and then worked a twelve hour night shift. She can let him sleep… mostly. 

She lets him sleep for a total of six hours. Six hours which - she’s done the google search - is the average amount of sleep a man his size and age needs. She guessed his physical age. They didn’t have statistics on 300 year olds. Any more and he would get overtired she rationalizes. Besides, it’s after noon and she’s been bursting at the seams to tell him. She’s debated how she should do it. She thought about flicking him or grabbing him, or even kissing him for one fleeting, crazy second of insanity. She still doesn’t know how she’s going to do it but as she bursts into his room and sees him sleeping there, rumpled and looking so relaxed, she can’t bring herself to wake him harshly. She may have been debating jumping on him and scaring the absolute shit out of him. 

Instead, she makes her way slowly over to his bed and sits next to him. He doesn’t react as the mattress moves under her weight and Emma tries to contain her joy at the fact that it moved at all. He looks so much younger asleep. His hair has gotten too long and it’s falling into his eyes so Emma brushes it back because she can. It’s soft. She can feel that it’s soft and she wants him to wake the hell up but doesn’t want to actually wake him. 

He stirs a bit as the hair tickles his face. He huffs a bit and buries his head deeper into the pillow. She watches him for a moment longer, taking in the pale skin that’s exposed, the inky black hair and the shadow covering his jaw. That thought of kissing him floats through her mind again. Her heart races at the idea and for a brief moment she wonders what he would feel like, what he would taste like. It scares the absolute shit out of her and she needs to do something to break this weird hold he’s got her in before she does something stupid like act on it. 

Quickly, Emma sticks her finger in her mouth and then into Killian’s pointy little ear. 

“Argh!” he shouts, jumping up in his bed. 

Emma laughs for a brief moment before her eyes widen and she lets out a small squeal, covering her eyes with her hand. “You’re naked!” she shouts. “Why are you naked?!”

“I was sleeping!” Killian shouts back, gathering the blanket over his lap. 

“Naked!?” She’s still shouting, still covering her eyes. She doesn’t want to think about the fact that she’s seen both her roommates naked in the last two days. 

“I’m in my room! What are you doing here!?” 

“Not trying to see that!” She says, going bright red. Emma peeks out from between her fingers to check he’s covered up. She sees him clutching the blanket to his neck and lets her hand drop. She clears her throat. “Sorry,” she says much more quietly.

“It’s fine. Just maybe knock next time and -“ he freezes, eyes blown wide as he stares at her and she can see it dawn on him. “Did you just give me a wet willy?” Emma grins, biting back her excitement. She nods. “You can touch me!?” She nods again and Killian lunges forward wrapping her in a crushing hug. He feels amazing. Better than she could have imagined and it feels dangerous. He’s warm all over, his skin soft where her hands rest on his back and the hair on his chest rough against her neck and cheek. He smells like salt water. 

“This is amazing!” he says, releasing her and holding her at arm’s length like he’s looking her over for the first time. “How did this happen?” 

It takes Emma a moment to answer, distracted by the fact that his sheet has fallen back into his lap and there are now miles of bare chest and arms and shoulders on display to her. She knows how he feels and how he smells and now she really,  _ really  _ wants to know how he tastes. 

Without thinking, she grabs hold of his face and crushes her lips against his smile. It only lasts a second and he’s stunned for most of it but for a brief instant, before she snaps out of it and pulls back, he kisses her back. He tastes like a campfire smells. 

The two sit staring wide eyed at each other. Like neither can believe she just did that. 

“I’m sorry!” she bursts out. “I’ve just wanted to do that for ages and -- I mean! Not with  _ you _ ! Just in general! And I got carried away?”

“It’s okay!” Killian insists, still smiling in excitement. “How was it?” 

“What?” Emma asks, thrown off. 

“Not like that!” He insists and now he’s the one who looks flustered. “I just meant could you feel it?” 

Emma breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh! Yeah! I felt it!” she thinks for a moment. “Did you?” she asks excitedly.

“Yeah! I felt it!” 

Emma is giddy with excitement and so is Killian from the looks of it. They both sit, contemplating the meaning of her new corporeality until the excitement dies down and Emma is reminded that she’s sitting in Killian’s room with her very naked roommate. Her very naked roommate whom she's just kissed.

“Right. So I just wanted to let you know, and now I have, so I’m just gonna pop out that way,” she says awkwardly, pointing at his bedroom door. “And you can put some clothes on or go back to sleep or whatever it is you do.” Killian is smiling, laughing at her as she hastily makes her exit. “So, yeah… see ya,” she finishes lamely and makes her way as quickly as possible to the kitchen. Crap. She did feel something. And it wasn’t just the brief press of his mouth against hers.

 

PART FOUR

After eight months of her new,, undead life with David and Killian, Emma feels more alive than she ever did when she was breathing. For the first time, she has a family - that one thing she always wanted - people she trusts, people she knows would never let her down. She can’t believe it took dying for her to finally live. 

They have a routine. Emma doesn’t sleep so she’s gotten into the habit of cooking a giant breakfast every morning for her boys. The early morning is often the only time all three of them cross except when David and Killian have days off. Killian arrives back from the night shift and has breakfast for dinner as David is just waking up for his shift at the station. Emma loves it. Sharing a family meal and talking about anything and everything. 

Once David leaves, Killian always makes an effort to stay awake a little longer to talk to Emma about her day - not that she gets up to anything too interesting. But she’s been making her way through his impressive DVD collection and reading more than she’s ever read in her life and Killian is always excited to hear her opinions on whatever her latest one is. Then, when he can’t keep his eyes open anymore, Emma shoos him off to bed and makes herself busy in the house. Lately, she’s been starting to think about walking out the front door. She hasn’t yet. But she’s thought about it.

Last week she almost did it. She sat by the front door, contemplating for hours. Killian came down and found her and it didn’t take him long to figure out what she was thinking. He didn’t push though - he never pushes. He just stood next to her while she chewed her lip, torn between the longing to leave, to have freedom, and the safety and pull of the house. Like she can’t leave it yet. There’s something missing. She needs to find it first before she can leave. After a while, Killian took hold of her hand, lacing their fingers together and squeezing. She took a moment to just appreciate the fact that she could have this and to ignore the heat it shot up her arm. ‘ _ Do you want me to go with you?’ _ he’d asked. She’d said yes. Not today. But when she did, yes. She wanted him to go with her. He’d only nodded and stood there until she offered to make him hot chocolate. 

David’s started bringing his girl around too. Her name’s Mary Margaret and Emma thinks she might be the loveliest person to ever exist. Her arrival was a little jarring for all of them if she’s being honest. David introduced her to Killian, and Emma watched the three of them have dinner from the same spot she’d watched Killian unpack their kitchen all those months ago. She’d been sweet and kind and she’d teased David who blushed like a teenager and Emma was just so happy for him. She’d met Killian’s eye once or twice and she could tell he felt the same way. It was only when Mary Margaret was leaving, the three saying their goodbyes in the front hall while Emma watched from the top of the stairs that everything Emma knew changed. 

“ _ I had a lovely time,”  _ Mary Margaret said.  _ “It was so great to finally meet you, Killian” _ she smiled.  _ “And please tell your roommate that I’d love to meet her sometime whenever she’s ready.”  _ Everyone froze. Killian and David’s eyes shot up to the top of the stairs, unable to process this kind of information. Emma nearly fell backwards. Holy shit.  _ Holy shit. _ Mary Margaret had seen her. What the hell did that mean? Luckily David had the presence of mind to make up some excuse about Emma being shy and Mary Margaret left. The two had turned to her then and the questions had started. Was she human? Yes. Killian didn’t sense anything off about her. So did that mean that people could see her now? They didn’t know. What did that mean? Could everyone see her? Or only kind, disney princesses like Mary Margaret? It was a whole new can of worms that Emma wasn’t sure she was ready to explore. But discussions were had about it at length and finally Emma decided she was alright with Mary Margaret seeing her. So the next time she came for dinner, Emma joined them. 

Sometimes - more often than she’d like to admit really - she finds herself in Killian’s room, watching him sleep. She knows that she shouldn’t, that it’s crossing some kind of roommate or friendship line, but she can’t help it. He just looks so peaceful and it makes her feel calm, like things are okay. If he can sleep nights when he’s lived through everything he has then there’s hope for her. Maybe one day she’ll even try sleeping. It’s tempting sometimes to curl herself up beside him, lay her head on his chest and just shut her eyes and see if she drifts off. It’s been two months and she still can’t get that kiss out of her mind. It’s when her mind begins replaying that moment over and over and the tumbling feeling in her stomach starts up that she usually heads downstairs to distract herself.

That’s what she’s doing now, watching a Doris Day movie - she’s made her way through all of Audrey Hepburn’s work - when the doorknob starts to rattle. Emma ignores it at first, wondering if maybe David got off work early. Killian is sleeping upstairs. But then she hears it. The sound she couldn’t ever forget. Not a key in the door but a lock pick. Someone breaking in. She’s up in a second, at the door ready to offer whoever walks in a very corporeal, very visible punch in the face. But, as it swings open, Emma loses all the fire inside of her, her heart dropping into her stomach. 

Neal. Neal’s here. After nearly a year, he’s back. She can feel the colour drain from her face, she feels like she’s going to float away as he turns to look at her…. And looks right through her. He turns to shut the door quietly and stands, taking in the room. Emma takes him in. She can’t believe he’s here. Where has he been? She was  _ murdered _ here and he never bothered to show his face. Not even at her funeral. She steps towards him, reaching out to touch his face, feel the skin she’d become so familiar with, but her hand passes through him and he doesn’t even flinch. “Neal,” she calls softly, whispers, but he doesn’t hear her. 

She doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t know how to react. She wants to cry and she needs something but she doesn’t know what and the next thing she knows she’s in Killian’s room. He’s asleep and Emma reaches out to shake him awake. Her hand passes through him as well. No. Emma can’t go back to being invisible. “ _ Killian!” _ she calls, desperate and he opens his eyes. Thank god. He looks at her bleary eyed and it only takes a second for him to realize something is wrong. He’s up and reaching for her and she can see the panic in his face as he moves through her like she's made of smoke. They both hear a floorboard creak downstairs and Killian rushes out. Emma follows, at a loss. 

Neal freezes when Killian finds him in the living room. “What the hell are you doing?” Killian asks and Neal visibly recoils from the danger emanating from her roommate. Neal backs away, stumbling as Killian stomps towards him.

“Hey, man, I’m sorry I didn’t think anyone was home and --”

“So you decided to break in?” Killian demands. 

“No, I… I used to live here,” he finishes lamely. 

Killian’s eyes dart to Emma and she can’t do anything but give him a small nod. He puts it together quickly. “You’re Neal.” 

Neal nods. “How did you know?” 

Killian isn’t looking at him, he’s looking at her, trying to gauge her reaction as he makes something up about the name on the lease when they took it over. “What are you doing here?” he asks, turning back to the man who is basically cowering in the front hall. 

“I just came to get some stuff that I left behind. I’m sorry.”

“Ask him why he didn’t come to the wake,” Emma says quietly and Killian makes himself larger, more imposing. 

“Why didn’t you come get it earlier? Wasn’t there are funeral here?” His tone is accusatory and Neal definitely hears it. 

“I… I couldn’t see her like that. I should have been here when she… but I wasn’t.” 

Both Killian and Emma relax slightly. The earnestness in his tone believable and Emma feels terrible to think that he’s been beating himself up this whole time. Killian waits until he gets a nod from Emma. 

“Okay. I mean, calling might have been better, but alright.” He holds his hand out. “Killian,” he says and Neal shakes it. “Go ahead and get what you need. I’m sorry for your loss. She must have been an amazing woman.” His eyes flick to hers as he says it. 

“Thanks,” Neal answers. 

“We left most of the stuff in the master bedroom where we found it,” he explains. “Neither of us wanted the big room,” he lies. In reality they let Emma keep her room and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to change it. 

“Thanks,” Neal says again. “I’ll just be a second.” 

Killian lets him go by and Emma follows Neal like she’s in a daze. It’s surreal to have him back in the house. It somehow feels like the most surreal thing she’s lived through yet. He makes his way to the bedroom and Emma is flooded by memories. The good moments, the silly happy mornings and late nights, but also the bad moments. The fighting and the arguing about jobs. He’d wanted to do one last one. One he promised would set them up for life, would let them buy their house. But she didn’t want to. She had a job now. A real one, a legal one and she wanted them to do things the old fashioned way. They didn’t need some quick con or robbery and a ton of money to be happy. They could just live like normal people, have the struggles and the successes and the joys and the family she always wanted. 

She remembers the biggest fight they’d had. The day before she’d died. He’d gone through with a job, stolen from some dangerous people, and Emma had been angry. He’d stormed out, insisting that he’d done it for her. That was the last time she’d seen him.

He bypasses the bedroom, the dresser with pictures of them and her clothes and his and everything else that made this room theirs. He goes to the bathroom, a room Emma hasn’t had to go into in nearly a year. She continues to follow, confused and skeptical but there’s something pulling at the back of her mind - a memory she can’t seem to shake. He reaches the toilet and Emma frowns as he kneels in front of it and pushes. The whole frame slides across the floor with an awful scraping sound. Neal reaches into the hole left in the floor and Emma’s heart stops as he pulls out a ziplock bag full of watches.  _ The watches.  _

Memories flood Emma with the force of a tidal wave and suddenly she’s drowning under them. Neal shoves the watches into a duffle bag and replaces the toilet as Emma collapses on the floor. She can’t breathe. She can’t think. She can only watch the horrible memories flash before her eyes. The two of them screaming over the fact that he’d gone through with the job. Her making herself hot chocolate to calm down when the knock had come on the door. Opening the door to see a man standing there with a gun. The man insisting that she give up the watches, insisting that her boyfriend had already given her up and told them she’d stolen them from his boss. Neal standing behind the man, telling her to just tell the guy where they were. The confusion and fear as she insisted she didn’t know. Begging Neal, begging him to tell her what was going on, why he was saying this. The man getting angry with her lack of answer, accusing her of lying and finally, the gunshot.

She lay there dying, hearing snippets of conversation. Hearing the man ransack their house as Neal stood over her, unmoving, just staring. Why wasn’t he calling an ambulance? The other man came back down, warning Neal that he better not find out he had anything to do with this heist or he would come for him. The man leaving. Neal still standing over her. He said sorry. And then... he left. 

Emma sits on the floor of the bathroom, hyperventilating. She feels like she’s disappearing. She’s fading, floating away. She can hear Neal and Killian saying goodbye. Can hear Killian call her name. She’s vaguely aware of him rushing into the room and kneeling beside her, trying to help, calling her name, asking questions. She can hear him. He’s there. He’s beside her. He came for her. She tries to focus on his voice. 

“Emma,” it sounds like he’s talking to her through a tunnel. “Emma, what happened?”

“It was him,” her voice is so low she doesn’t know if he’ll hear it, but he does.

“What was? Emma what happened?”

“It was Neal. He - he sold me out. He blamed it on me. He came with him. He killed me for it. He just… he just let him kill me.” She turns to Killian, meeting his eyes with tears in her own. “He abandoned me.”

Killian looks at her for a long moment and she can see the pain and confusion in his eyes morphing into something else. Something dark, an anger like she’s never seen before. She can see the black flickering in his eyes, threatening to take over as he stands to storm out. She reaches out, not sure why but so desperate for him not to leave her here. She catches his hand. Her fingers don’t go through him this time, but she’s back to the numbness, she can touch him but not feel him and he can’t feel her so she speaks.

“Please.” He turns and looks at her, face morphed into something terrifying. It doesn’t scare her though. He’s nowhere near the monster she knows some men can be. “Please don’t leave me,” she almost whimpers. 

Instantly, Killian’s face changes back. His eyes are blue again and he looks at her with such empathy. He nods and sits down on the floor with her. He bundles her up in his arms, tucks her head tightly under his chin and lets her cry on his shoulder. She can’t feel the caress but the intention of it is strong and she can imagine she does. She remembers the feeling of being in his arms, of kissing him, and it feels more real the more she focuses. 

“I’m here, Swan,” he promises. “I won’t go anywhere. We won’t ever leave you. You’re real and you’re here and you’re human. And we love you. I love you,” he promises. She knows what he means. She knows he loves her the way you love family, the way she loves David. But sitting here, curled up on the floor as he reminds her that she is worth something, she lets herself pretend that he loves her the way she knows that she loves him. 

And she does. It took this for her to admit it but she does love him. She’s  _ in love _ with him and he’s really the only thing keeping her from floating away. Maybe it’s because she’s vulnerable, or because she’s hurting, but she doesn’t think about it. She pulls back, aware of the fact that she feels his beard scratching the top of her head as her hair drags against it. 

She looks at him for a long time and he meets her eyes with a kindness she’s never known before she met him. She brings her hand up and gently brushes the scruff along his jaw with the tips of her fingers. She sees the relief on his face as they both feel it, the heat that she knows isn’t something she feels with everyone, just him. She moves her fingers to his lips and traces them, remembering the way they felt against her own. 

“Emma,” he whispers in the quiet room, his voice echoing against the tile. It’s both a warning and a plea and she doesn’t really care. She moves slowly, replacing her fingers with her lips. She kisses him carefully, gently. It’s short, a soft brushing of lips, her fingers still trailing in his beard. 

When she pulls back, their eyes meet again and Emma can see the same longing in his eyes that she’s sure is in hers. So she kisses him again. And this time he kisses her back. His lips moving against her own in a careful exploration and Emma can feel the warmth of him spread from her lips to her cheeks and her heart and her stomach that is filling with a pleasant kind of warmth. 

He brings his hand up to cup her face and the warmth of it feels more real and more solid than it ever has before.  _ This  _ feels more real than anything she’s ever felt before. He kisses her for a long time. Neither of them trying anything else, neither feeling the need to push it further than a kiss and Emma wonders if maybe he’s wanted to do this as long as she has. 

It feels like hours later when David finds them, sitting on the bathroom floor, his entrance finally forcing them to break apart and witness his look that’s somewhere between an eye roll and a grin. 

“It’s about damn time,” he says. 

Killian just smiles at her. “Aye,” he agrees. “About bloody time indeed.”

  
  


PART FIVE

“I was thinking,” David says as the three of them sit in the living room on one of those rare occasions where they’re all home and have nothing to do. 

“Oh really?” Killian mocks. “Please, enlighten us.”

David throws a pillow at him and it hits Emma who is curled up against Killan’s side.

“Hey!” she shouts. 

“ _ I was thinking _ ,” David continues. “That Neal deserves to pay.” Emma tenses up and David speaks quickly. “No, hear me out. What he did to you isn’t right. I’m a cop, Emma. You just solved your own murder. I could have him rot in jail for the rest of his life.”

Emma sighs, trying her best to appease her friend. Ever since they filled him in on the events of last week he hasn’t been able to accept that Neal would get away with such a heinous act. His sense of justice has always been one of his driving forces.

“I appreciate the thought, David, but what would you use? The testimony of a dead girl? It’s no use. He got away with it. At least now I know who he really was.” 

Killian pulls her in tighter and kisses her crown but David still can’t seem to let it go. 

“We could make him confess.” 

“How?” Emma asks, still feeling this is useless. 

David thinks for a long time. “What if he saw you?” Emma’s heart races in her chest. Fear and panic consume her at the memory of the last time she saw him. How she literally became invisible and the thought of disappearing again forms a lump in her throat. 

“Hear me out!” David insists. “If he saw you and you confronted him, you could make him admit what he’s done. We could record it! Then we’d have his confession and we could get him!” Emma is still panicking at the thought of confronting him when Killian begins stroking her arm, calming her. “What do you think?” David asks him.

Killian waits, speaking slowly as he always does with serious matters. “I think, that David is right.” Emma looks at him shocked. “This might be what’s keeping you from moving on, love. Never being able to confront the man who betrayed you. That’s a powerful pull.” They’ve had this conversation before. How she’s only still around because of ‘unfinished business’, that once she completes it she’ll be able to move on to wherever people go afterwards. But the truth of it is, Emma doesn’t know if she wants to go. 

“You want me to move on?” she asks them, her voice small and she can feel herself starting to fade again. 

“No!” they both shout at once, making her jump but also feel more solid again.

“No,” Killian insists. “But Emma, I don’t want you to be stuck here forever, never able to move on, living as a shadow. Eternity… It’s no kind of life.” 

He’s speaking from experience, she knows. But she doesn’t want to give this up. Them, him, she can’t. 

“I’m not ready,” she says and they leave it at that. 

“That’s okay,” Killian promises and wraps her even more snuggly against his chest. “Right, Dave?”

“Of course,” David agrees but she knows that he’s still torn up about it. They change the topic and not another word is said on the matter. 

 

***

 

“I’m so glad you decided to come down,” Mary Margaret says when she and Emma are in the kitchen drinking tea one afternoon. She’s become a good friend in the months since she and David started seeing each other, and a staple in the house. Emma likes it, she didn’t realise how much she missed female company. She hadn’t had many girlfriends in her life but she’s glad that Mary Margaret is one of them. “You should let me have you over to my place next time,” she adds and Emma’s smile falters. 

“I, um, I don’t really like to leave the house,” she says lamely. 

Mary Margaret just looks at her kindly. “Of course, forget I said anything.” As far as Mary Margaret knows, Emma is an agoraphobic with social anxiety and it works as a cover for why she never leaves and why she hid the first time they met. 

“Things seem to be going well with you and Killian,” she changes the topic and Emma feels her face flush. They have been going well. Really well. Except…. Something’s been different in the last week and she wants to talk about it but doesn’t know how. Maybe Mary Margaret would be good practice. 

“They are. But… I think something happened last week.”

“What do you mean?”

“He came home and he’s been acting strange ever since. Like he’s afraid. He jumps when the doorbell rings and he’s just… on edge. And I don’t know why.” 

Mary Margaret hums. “David said someone came to the sheriff's station asking questions about Killian. He said he was an old friend. I think David told him. Could that be it?”

An old friend? What old friend could have come to see about Killian? She’s only ever heard him talk about three people from his past. Two are dead and the other is…

“What did he look like?” Emma asks suddenly and her friend frowns.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see him. I think David said he was older… and Scottish?” Emma’s heart starts to race. Gold. It had to be. What could he possibly be doing here? 

At that moment, Killian walks through the door, his face was twisted into the frown he’s been wearing far too much lately. Mary Margaret must sense something changing between them because she stands and excuses herself, saying she’d best get going for work or an appointment or something. Killian barely looks at them as he makes his way straight to his room. Emma follows. 

“Killian?” she asks tentatively, pushing his door open. 

“Hello, love. Sorry I’m just really tired. Would you mind if I had a nap?” He does look tired. Really tired and Emma knows a nap won’t help. 

“Killian, talk to me. What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on.” He sounds defensive and Emma feels her own defensiveness come forward. She doesn’t want to fight, but she wonders if it's inevitable. 

“Don’t lie to me. I know Gold’s back.” 

His eyes go wide. “Well, there you go then. You know everything now don’t you?” His tone is cruel and Emma’s not going to have it. 

“What the hell, Killian. What’s going on? Why is he back? And why is he seeking you out?” 

“It doesn’t concern you. I can handle it,” he insists and Emma fumes. 

Hell no. He is not going to push her away right now. She tries to quell her anger, turn it into something productive, a drive. She takes a deep breath and sits down on the bed next to him. She takes his face in her hands and makes him look at her. 

“Killian, why can’t you tell me?” He won’t meet her eyes but she doesn’t let him go, doesn’t let him hide from her. 

Finally, he sighs. “Because if you knew who I was before, before I met you and David… If you knew that man you wouldn’t want me anymore.” He looks at her finally and Emma has never seen such self-hatred in his eyes before.

“I know who you were,” she tells him. “You told me about your days as a pirate. I know you killed. I know you fed. But you changed. That’s what matters. Who you are now is what matters.” 

“I didn’t tell you all of it,” he argues, sounding defeated. “I didn’t tell you that after Gold turned me and killed Milah… I joined him. We were friends. We murdered and tortured and played with our victims and we enjoyed it.  _ I  _ enjoyed it. I’m not a good person, Emma. I’m a monster. And now he’s back and he wants me to come back with him and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to resist him. I’m already craving it. The bloodlust and the fear - it’s my nature. He made me and it’s like… it’s like he  _ owns _ me.” He stands, pulling away from her and walking across the room.

“No, he doesn’t.” She says it calmly, as a fact. 

“Emma, you don’t know me,” he insists and she can see his face vamping out in frustration. 

“Yes I do.” 

She follows him, stands in front of him and grabs hold of either side of his face, forcing him to look at her this time. “You’re the man who saved David, a werewolf who should have been your enemy, because you couldn’t see an innocent man in pain. You’re the man who has been drinking stale, bagged blood so that you don’t hurt anyone for years. You’re the man who saved me when I thought I would fade away. You’re the man that gave the both of us a home and taught us how to be human again.” He’s still not meeting her eyes and she gives him a bit of a jerk until he does. “ _ That’s  _ the man you are. Not the monster. He may have turned you but he doesn’t own you. You are the man you want to be. And that man…” she pauses, stealing herself to finally say it. “That’s the man I love.” 

A small, choking sound comes from him before he lunges, covering her mouth in a kiss that knocks her back with the sheer force of it. He catches her though, gathering her up in his arms and holding on tight like she’s a lifeline. She lets him kiss her, lets him take whatever he needs, draw strength from her. He pulls away finally and speaks against her lips, rushed and desperate. 

“I love you. I don’t deserve you but I love you. I love you, Emma.” She feels the tears on his face and pulls his head into the crook of her neck and he lets her just hold him. “He’s got to have a plan,” he says finally. “He’s always got a plan and if he wants me back he’ll find a way.” 

She runs her hand through his hair. “Then we’ll figure it out and we’ll stop him. All of us, together. You’re not alone in this. None of us are alone in this anymore and that’s because of you. He’s not gonna take that away.” She feels him nod against her shoulder and she knows then that they’re going to be okay. 

In the weeks that follow, Emma can’t shake the feeling that something is watching her, watching the house. She can’t count the number of times she’s peeked out from the curtains in her room, expecting to see someone lurking on their front lawn but there’s no one there. She raises her concerns to David, hoping he’ll dismiss her fears and tell her she’s being ridiculous but instead he agrees with her. 

“Somebody has been hanging out - just outside the property line. I can, I can smell it,” he confesses a bit uncomfortable. The full moon is in six days and David’s senses are always sharper the closer he is to the change. 

“What did you smell?” she asks, doing her best to make sure he doesn’t think she finds anything strange about his abilities, but also more on edge than ever now that she knows someone is there and it’s not just her imagination. 

“Metal. Like… pennies? And cologne, something expensive,” he wrinkles his nose at the memory and Emma remembers when he made her and Killian get rid of all the perfumes and body sprays in the house the first month they lived together.

“Have you seen him?” she asks, hopeful. 

David sighs. “No. And like I said he’s been staying off the property so there’s technically nothing we can do about it.” 

Emma thinks for a long time. She knows it has to be Gold. She feels it in her gut. She also knows that if she told David he would agree… but he’d also want to tell Killian and she’s not sure that’s a good idea. They have no proof and she saw the way he reacted to knowing that Gold was in town. Knowing he was watching the house, watching them, who knows what it would do to him, what kind of darkness it could unleash. No, until they’re certain, she won’t tell them her suspicions. 

“I’ll see if I can track the smell out onto the street, find a trail,” David tells her, mistaking her silence for fear. She only nods, not wanting to speak because speaking would mean lying. She’ll keep watch. Every night. All night. When she knows for sure she’ll tell them. Then they’ll figure out what to do. 

Two nights later she sees something. It’s brief and for a second she thinks her eyes are playing tricks on her, but no. She saw it. She knows she did. A man standing beneath a lightpost. Her heart races. It’s not enough. Not yet. 

The next night she sees him again. Peeking from behind the curtain, she takes in everything she can make out about him. Short, and thin with long hair, wearing an expensive looking suit. He stands beneath the lightpost across the street now, leaning on a cane. He looks so normal, so comfortable that were it not for the setting and the pull in her gut he wouldn’t look out of place. 

She’s staring, trying to memorize the details of his face she can see, when he smiles. Emma’s heart falls into her stomach. He knows she’s there and he’s looking at her. He wanted to be seen. Her heart is racing in her chest and, as if he can sense it, his grin widens and he makes a gesture like he’s tipping a hat at her, an echo of a time long gone, before he disappears into the darkness of the night. 

When she sees him the next night, she’s saying goodbye to Killian at the door as he leaves for work. She’s paranoid now, looking over his shoulder out of the house, scanning the street for his figure.

“Everything alright, love?” Killian asks. “You seem nervous.” He brushes a piece of her hair back behind her ear and his touch is soothing. 

“Fine,” she lies. “I was reading Stephen King earlier,” she adds when he eyes her suspiciously. He doesn’t believe her but he’s not going to push it. He’ll wait for her to seek him out and she feels terrible for his trust. But she’s doing this for him, she tells herself. She can figure this out. She can keep him safe.

“If you say so,” he says quietly. He pulls her face to his slowly and gives her a gentle kiss goodbye. There’s more to it than just that though. She’s learned his kisses by now. This one speaks of patience and support. And of love. She should tell him.

They pull apart and it’s at that moment that she sees him. Gold. Lurking in the shadows of the alleyway between the buildings across the street, watching. The night is just starting to fall and the cover of darkness hides him. But she’s honed into him now, like she can sense him, sense the threat. 

And Killian can too. She practically sees the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and fear and adrenaline floods her.  _ No _ . He can’t see him. She remembers how she felt when she saw Neal. If it’s anything like that for Killian… she just can’t let him see him. She can’t let him leave the house. She needs to keep him here, where Gold can’t get him.

She acts without thinking, just desperate to distract him. She grabs his face in her hands, turning him to her and slanting her mouth over his own. It’s a deep, hungry kiss and his gasp of surprise turns into a passionate growl as she deepens it, seeking his tongue with her own. His hands are everywhere, in her hair, gripping her back, her waist and she gives as good as she gets, hands reaching for the collar of his jacket, pulling him in until they’re flush against one another. She pulls away only long enough to trail her lips down his jaw to his neck to the muscle where it meets his shoulder.

“Emma,” he groans and she’s not sure if he’s asking her to stop or keep going. She’s not sure  _ he _ even knows. “I have to go to work,” he says somewhat pathetically. Glancing over his shoulder, Emma meets Gold’s gaze in the shadows. Her eyes narrow in a murderous glare. No, she thinks, her resolve hardening.  _ You’re not getting him. He’s not yours anymore. _

She covers Killian’s mouth with her own again, grabbing hold of his belt and pulling him further into the house. “Screw work,” she mumbles against his mouth and Killian doesn’t fight her as she drags him inside, kicking the door shut behind them. He’s hers. He’s hers and she’s his and Gold isn’t going to take him away. 

Later, when Killian is asleep amidst the tangled sheets on his bed, Emma sits cross legged beside him. She needs a plan. She needs a way to end Gold, keep him away from Killian. She’d never seen him look as desperate and afraid as when he’d told her he didn’t know if he could resist Gold, that he felt owned. She looks over at him, the strong lines of his face softened by sleep, lashes almost touching his cheeks. She places a soft kiss on his shoulder, not wanting to wake him but just needing to feel him. She’s going to save him. Save him the way he’s saved her so many times since they met. 

She needs to tell David. He’ll be home from the late shift in an hour and she’ll tell him then. He’ll have a plan. Getting bad guys is his job. It was hers too and together she knows they can figure something out. Even if this bad guy is thousands of years old. The full moon is two days away but she doesn’t care. He needs to know. She needs his help.

She hears the door open downstairs and freezes. She checks the phone the boys got her. It’s not David. Ever since the incident with Neal they always make sure to text if they’ll be home early or late so that she doesn’t worry. Carefully, so as not to wake Killian, she gets up, ducking down and reaching for the box he keeps under the bed, the one with the stake in it - for his protection, for theirs, he’d told them once. She shuts the door silently behind her.

Making her way down the stairs, stake in hand, she winces at each creak of the floorboards. She reaches the hall and finds the door swung wide open. Just outside, polished shoes standing just beyond the threshold, is Gold. He smiles at her and it’s an oily kind of grin, one filled with menace and cruelty masked by politeness. 

“Miss Swan, I presume,” he says as though they’re meeting for a job interview. 

“What the hell do you want?” she demands. Fuck his niceties. 

He smiles at her anger. “Why, only to visit with my old friend,” he tells her and Emma’s grip tightens on the stake hidden up her sleeve. 

“You’re not wanted here,” she tells him. “Killian doesn’t want anything to do with you. He’s not going back.” Her tone is strong, firm, but her blood is racing in her ears. 

His expression darkens. “Oh, I beg to differ, Miss Swan. You see, it’s been a long time since the Captain and I ‘tore up the town’ if you’ll excuse the expression, nearly a decade. He may resist, insist he’s not that man but eventually he’ll crumble, like he always does and give into the bloodlust. It’s who he is. It’s in his nature.” Emma’s glaring at him now, hearing the words Killian told her not two weeks ago. “After all,” Gold adds, “once a theiving pirate, always a theiving pirate.” 

And then it makes sense. “That’s why you do it isn’t it? Why you make him come back to you, make him kill. It’s wasn’t enough to have him live forever without her. You need to make sure that he hates himself for every second of that eternity.” She can tell from his expression that she’s right. “Why? Why go to such lengths? Because Milah loved him and not you?”

His expression darkens at the sound of his wife’s name. “Careful how you choose your words, Miss Swan. You may be dead but there are all manner of ways to make the spirit hurt.”

“You can’t hurt me,” Emma says, more bravely than she feels. “You can’t come in. You haven’t been invited.” 

His smile turns even more malicious, mirthful almost as he steps forward slowly and Emma feels the blood drain from her face as he crosses the threshold into her house. 

“Funny thing, ownership,” he muses as he steps towards her. Emma stumbles back, fear the only emotion left in her body as he closes in. “While technically the name on the lease may be Mr Nolan’s, the previous owner never left,” he looks her over and Emma feels sick. “Therefore, that would make the house both of yours and neither of yours. And a house with no owner requires no invitation.”

Emma is panicking now, desperate to get away from this creature that is stalking her slowly. She believes him when he says he can hurt her - corporeal or not. And if he can hurt her he can hurt Killian, and David. She knows he will. He’s spent three hundred years hurting Killian for his own amusement. He’s backed her into a corner now and his eyes flick up the stairs to where she knows Killian still sleeps. He turns his gaze on her and gives her a terrifying, sharp toothed smile. 

He makes for the stairs and Emma acts without thinking - plunging the stake into his heart with as much force as she can. Gold pauses, looking down at the stake in his chest with curiosity. He looks almost impressed before he pulls the weapon out with a sickening sound of blood and flesh. Emma watches in horror as he turns the stake over in his hand. 

“Did you really believe you could kill me?” He mocks. “I have lived on this earth longer than you can even fathom, Miss Swan, and you… well, you don’t live here at all do you? You’re a ghost, a memory, a smell that one can’t quite get out of the old carpet. You are  _ nothing, _ ” he whispers the last bit and Emma can feel the tears burning her eyes. 

He turns the stake over once more before dropping it to the ground then proceeds to dust off the front of his jacket where she stabbed him, as though it were an annoyance. “Rest assured, Killian will return with me. He just needs a little reminder of who he is.” He’s speaking so closely to her face now that she can feel his breath. “Do, tell Mr. Jones that I look forward to seeing him very soon.” And just like that, he’s gone. 

She doesn’t know how long she stands there, frozen against the back wall of the house, staring at the open door but when David returns he runs in at the sight of her. 

“Emma?” he demands. “Emma, what happened?  _ Killian! _ ” he calls up and Killian is downstairs just in time to see her collapse into David’s arms. She thought she could do it. She thought she could save him. She thought she could protect all of them. But she was wrong. She can’t. Not alone. 

“Gold,” she says, her voice sounding choked to her own ears. “It was Gold.”

“He was here?” Killian asks, anger and fear in his voice and Emma turns to him, desperate for his forgiveness, for not telling him sooner, for not being able to protect him. She nods and sees the blood drain from his face.

“He’s back. He’s back and he wants you.”

 

PART SIX

Emma can’t sleep. Not in her normal, never-sleeps kind of way, but in the kind of way that she would have been kept up all day and all night unable to turn off her brain and that makes her jumpy like she’s had twelve cups of coffee. None of them sleep. They talk, they plan, they strategize. They’ve only got one plan so far. Killian is not going with him. At least, David and Emma have that plan. Killian still doesn’t trust his own strength to resist the man who has destroyed him over and over again. “ _ Then trust us _ ,” Emma had said and when Killian met her gaze she could see the small, barely there but flickering flame of hope behind his eyes.  _ Us _ , Emma thought. This was what they had built their whole lives around and it was going to get them out of this.

“Maybe you should go away,” David suggests. “Hide, try disappear until it’s safe.”

Killian shakes his head. “He’d just find me again. And he would go after you.” He folds his hands, lacing his fingers and resting his forehead against them. He lets out a heavy sigh “We have to kill him.” He looks back up at them. “It’s the only way.” 

“We can’t kill him,” Emma argues. “I tried. He’s too powerful.”

“There are other ways to kill a vampire,” Killian trails off, not wanting to explain. Emma looks at David for an explanation and sees the way his jaw has set, the muscle clicking. 

“Like what?” she asks, hesitantly. David and Killian share a long look.

“Like a werewolf,” David says finally. Killian looks like he hates himself. She can’t imagine how he feels. He’s asking his best friend to kill to save his life. “I’ll do it.” David says.

“Dave,” Killian starts, sounding like he’s going to talk him out of it. 

“No. If I have to have this thing inside of me it might as well do it’s part in return.” He looks at Killian. “We don’t have long.” He looks outside where the sun is still up but sitting lower in the sky than they’d like. “It’s only a few hours till moonrise. Do you think you could lure him?” David asks, a plan formulating and Emma watches in horror as her friends plan the murder of an ancient monster that she watched pull a stake out of his heart not 48 hours ago. 

“Maybe,” Killian considers, running a hand through his hair. “If he thought that his visit scared Emma… thought that she didn’t want anything to do with me,” Emma glares at him at the very thought of it. “It might be enough to convince him I want to come back.” 

“Can you get in touch with him? Get him to meet you here?”

Killian nods. “Aye. There are… systems in place. For when one of us wants to get in touch with another. I can send a message.” 

“Can you do it by tonight?”

Killian nods, still unhappy but resolved. “Yeah, I think so.” 

“Do it.”

Killian stands. He looks at her and she knows what he wants to say. That he’s sorry. That he wishes this wasn’t happening to them. That he blames himself. That he loves her. She meets his gaze and hopes that he can see all the faith she has in him, the trust and the love. They’re going to do this. They won’t like it but they’re going to do it. He nods again, turning to the door. As he passes David he stops, but words don’t come. He reaches a hand out and places it on his friend’s shoulder, a solid presence. David accepts it as the thanks he knows it is - even if thank you could never cover the level of gratitude for such an act of selflessness. 

Now they can only wait. Wait until Killian returns with only a nod confirming a message has been sent, and then wait until the sun sets and Gold arrives. 

“I should stay,” Killian says suddenly in the silence. “If he doesn’t see me here he could get suspicious I -”

“No,” David says. Emma agrees. If Killian is here when David loses control, the unspeakable could happen. She doesn’t even want to consider it. 

They go back to waiting in silence. Emma is at a loss for what to do. She feels powerless, useless, forced to sit and wait and watch and hope that things go according to plan. So she does the only thing she can think of.

“Does anyone want a hot chocolate?” she asks and both boys turn to her with matching looks of disbelief and amusement on their faces. 

“I would  _ love _ a hot chocolate,” Killian says after a moment.

“Me too,” David adds and Emma smiles despite everything that’s happening. She makes the cocoa, adding extra cinnamon and watches as they drink it, making a point to comment on how good it is and complimenting her and for just a second everything feels normal. They feel like them and it’s a them that she wouldn’t trade for anything, untimely death and all.

There’s a knock at the door and they all jump. He’s early. The sun has almost disappeared beneath the horizon and Emma sees David’s face drop when he looks to the door. He sets his mug down slowly.

“David?” Emma asks but he ignores her. Instead he opens the door to reveal Mary Margaret on the other side. Her sunny smile falls when she sees her boyfriend’s expression. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks. 

“What are you doing here?” David asks, his tone a bit sharper than it normally would be. Mary Margaret flinches. 

“You invited me,” she says, now unsure. “You sent flowers to my classroom with a card inviting me to dinner.” The three share a look and David is quickly trying to rush her out the door. This is wrong. Something is wrong. 

“You have to go,” David says. “I can’t explain right now but you need to leave.” 

Mary Margaret looks hurt. “Why?” 

“I didn’t invite you,” he says, pulling the door open. 

“No, I did.” 

Emma would recognize that voice anywhere, the accent and the elegant manner of speaking that hides the cruelty beneath it. Gold. Gold is here. He didn’t fall for their ruse. And now he’s brought Mary Margaret here, less than an hour before David’s transformation starts. He brought insurance.

Gold strolls in, like he’s a welcome guest but there’s a threat to the way he moves so that none of them stop him. “Lovely to see you again, Miss Swan,” he says offering her a mock bow. She glares. “Killian, my old friend, so good to see you looking so well.” Killian tenses next to her, fists clenching at his sides, she takes hold of his arm, trying to ground him. Gold smiles and turns to David and Mary Margaret. “Mr. Nolan, Miss Blanchard, we’ve not yet had the pleasure.”

“Cut the crap, Gold. What do you want,” Emma demands and he chuckles. 

“You always did like them fiery didn’t you?” he asks Killian. Killian glares and takes a step in front of Emma. Gold’s grin only stretches. 

“I’m not coming with you,” Killian says and Emma’s heart leaps at the certainty in his voice. Gold tisks. 

“That’s what you always say,” he insists. “You always change your mind in the end. Come now, don’t you remember the fun we had? Remember the brothels of Paris? Or the Italian court? Remember New Years Eve at the turn of the last century?” Killian’s jaw ticks at the last reminder and Emma puts a hand on his back, trying to banish whatever terrible memory Gold is recalling. 

“What’s going on?” Mary Margaret asks, looking confused and a bit scared. 

“You need to leave,” David says. He turns to her, softer than before. “Please. I can’t explain now but please, I need you to go. I need you to be safe.”

“David,” she starts and Emma’s pretty sure she’s about as willing to leave David as Emma would be to leave Killian. 

“Not quite yet,” Gold chimes in. “She’s only just arrived and we have so much planned for the evening.” David casts a glance outside. The sun is completely down now. Soon the moon will start to rise and the transformation will being. Gold strolls over to Killian, places an amicable hand on his shoulder. “Now, my friend, I know you’re hesitant but I think you just need a little reminder of who you are. People like us, we don’t do well with others - not those who aren’t our kind. You’ve had your fun playing house but now it’s time to come home.” 

“This  _ is _ his home,” Emma says defiant and she and David both step forward, placing themselves between the monster and the people they care most for in the world. 

“How lovely,” Gold says, almost reverently. “I wonder, will this be your home when those you share it with are gone?”

“What are you talking about?” Killian asks and there’s a force in his voice but also a fear. 

“I wonder how long Mr. Nolan will be able to stomach the site of you after you played such an integral part in the death of the woman he loves. After all, she wouldn’t be here on the verge of his transformation were it not for you and the company you keep.”

“What’s he talking about?” Mary Margaret asks, voice shaking.

“Nothing,” David promises, glaring at Gold but she can see that his muscles are already tensed in pain, the hair on his arms sticking up. It’s starting. 

“And Miss Swan, surely you can’t stay here forever. Unfinished business can only stay unfinished for so long and eventually you’ll leave the poor captain here alone. In fact, I’ve invited along a friend who might be able to help us move things along.”

He moves to the door as though he’s about to present a gift or a surprise and opens it with a flourish. “You can come in now,” he calls and a man makes his way up the porch. 

Neal. Neal is here again and Emma feels the floor fall out under her but Killian grips her hand and she feels solid again. Neal looks around, hesitant and unsure but then his eyes land on Emma and his face goes white. 

“E-Ems?” he asks in disbelief. She can only stare, with hatred filling the space where love used to be. Killian squeezes her hand tighter. “How?” he’s staring at her wide eyed and Gold practically skips over to him, throws an arm around his shoulder. 

“Allow me to give you the quick version. You blamed her for your crime, it got her killed, and you left her to die. Now she’s a ghost and ready to haunt you for all eternity unless you confess your sins.” 

“What? No - I… Ems? Is this real?”

“It’s real,” she says. “You need to get out of here,” she tells him sternly. 

“I didn’t… no I would never,” he insists and Gold rolls his eyes. 

Just then, David lets out a scream and collapses to the ground. Mary Margaret calls his name, rushing to try help. “No!” he shouts and stands to rushes to the door, limping as he crosses the living room. 

“Not so fast,” Gold insists and with a flick of his arm he grabs and throws David clear across the room as though he weighed nothing. “You can’t leave before all the fun begins,” he sighs. 

David groans and Mary Margaret runs to his side. Emma and Killian exchange a look, one that speaks volumes of the fear and the reality of this moment. He’s strong. Too strong. So strong they don’t know if they could overpower him even if they all worked together. Killian’s expresion falls and she can see the apology in it.  _ No _ .

“Stop. I’ll come with you,” he tells Gold.

“No!” Emma shouts, putting herself between the two men. 

“Excellent. Though I think I’ll need some assurance that you mean it. No chance of you running back if there’s nothing to run back to is there?” He smiles and Killian’s face turns to one of anguish. Gold looks around, spotting Neal who had shrunk away when the violence started. “There you are,” he says, grabbing the man by his hair and lifting him to his feet. “Now, why don’t you tell Miss Swan here what happened and we can all go on our merry way.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Neal insists and Gold pulls his hair harder. He looks at Neal who winces and then starts to scream when Gold’s face transforms. “Tell. Her. What. You. Did. David over there is a police officer. He’ll make sure justice is served and then sweet little ‘Ems’ here can move on to a better place.” 

“I didn’t -” he starts but Gold pins him against the wall, hand at his throat. “Okay!” he rasps, hardly able to breathe. He looks at Emma. “They found me and they knew I’d done it. The only way I could talk them out of killing me was to convince them that it was you. I figured since you didn’t know where the watches were they would at least keep you alive until I figured something out but then…. I’m sorry.” His confession comes out strangled but he says it. There, she has it. The truth.

“I’m sorry too,” she says. “I’m sorry that I ever loved you and that I ever thought you loved me.” Neal’s face drops at her words but Emma feels elated saying them. There’s a freedom that comes with her own confession. 

Gold looks between the two of them then around the room, waiting for something. Emma waits too. Her business is finished. She got her justice. Against her will or not. Shouldn’t she disappear or see a white light? 

“Huh,” Gold says after a moment. “It seems I was mistaken,” and Emma feels an overwhelming relief. Whatever was keeping her here it wasn’t Neal. “Pity,” he says before pulling Neal to him and ripping his throat open with his teeth. 

Emma shouts  _ No! _ As she watches him drain the life out of Neal. Mary Margaret screams from the back of the room. Emma turns to David who is writhing on the floor now until her attention is drawn back by the thud of Neal’s body hitting the floor. Gold stands, body at his feet, looking more terrifying than ever, eyes black, lips pulled back over fangs and blood running down his chin, staining his impeccable suit. 

“There are other ways to get rid of a ghost,” he growls but his attention is distracted by David’s scream. 

“What’s happening to him?” Mary Margaret shouts as they watch his bones shift and crack. 

“He’s transforming. You have to get out of here!” Killian insists, rushing to try pull her away. 

“No!” she shouts, ripping her arm away from him. “David, David it’s me. It’s Mary Margaret.” She brushes her hand over his face but pulls it back, stumbling as he snaps at her, his face hardly even human anymore.

“We have to go!” Killian insists as Gold looks on amused, like he’s enjoying watching the woman try get through to the wolf she loves. 

Mary Margaret frowns, looking more resolved than ever. “No. I’m not leaving him.” She grabs hold of his face, hair and all, and forces him to look at her. “David Nolan, you listen to me. Whatever is happening to you, I’m here. I love you. I’m staying. I love all of you, even this part.” David lets out a sound between a growl and a scream as the transformation reaches its end. He lays on the floor, curled up the same way he was last time Emma saw him like this. She hears the whimper as his gaze fixes on Mary Margaret and knows what’s coming next - the attack.

“Mary Margaret!” she shouts but before she can do anything, the wolf rears up on his hind legs, target in sight and Mary Margaret moves just as quickly, throwing herself under his arms and wrapping herself tight around him.

“I love you. You’re in there.” 

Emma’s breath stops as she watches, terrified. But then something amazing happens, something flashes in the wolf’s eyes - recognition. He looks down at the woman holding him, then at the people standing in the room with him - his family - and the aggression leaves his body. His nose comes down to brush against Mary Margaret’s dark hair and she laughs in relief. “You’re going to have so much explaining to do when this is over,” she tells him.

“Incredible,” Gold says, looking over the scene in front of him. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” He looks around the room then, considering. “I fear you may share a bond even I can’t break,” he says but Emma tenses. There’s no defeat in his voice. 

Faster than she can even comprehend, Gold whips around, driving a stake into Killian’s chest.

Emma knows she screamed, she can hear it but it sounds off, disembodied, like it’s coming from far away. All she can hear is silence as Killian brings a hand to his chest and looks at her, his eyes wide in shock and pain as he stumbles back out the door. His boots miss the steps as he’s thrown back from the force of the blow and he tumbles down the porch stairs, landing on his back in the driveway. 

“No! Emma shouts, falling to her knees next to him. Her hands move over his body, unsure where to touch, how to help. Tears run freely down her face. “Killian, no. Don’t leave me,” she begs but his eyes are becoming glassy already. He reaches a hand out and touches her face with bloody fingers. Emma brings her hand over his and is reminded of another night so many months ago. “Don’t leave me,” she whispers. 

She feels a hand on her shoulder, Mary Margaret is there next to her, her face heartbroken. David is at Killian’s head, human again.

“Hey, buddy, come on, stay with us okay? 

Killian smiles his charming smile. “You’re naked,” he tells David and David laughs.

“Yeah, man, I’m naked. I promise you won’t ever have to see this again if you just hang on. Can you do that?

“I don’t think so, mate,” he chokes, hand going up to pat David’s arm. “You’re my best friend. You know that?” David chokes on his sob. Killian looks to Mary Margaret. “Thank you. For saving him.” She only nods and David hangs his head. Killian looks at her now. “Emma -”

“Don’t you call me that! You only call me that when things are bad and they are not bad! You’re gonna survive this.”

He smiles. “Swan, you’re outside,” he says as if she’s just managed to taste her first onion ring and Emma wants to laugh and cry at once. His expression becomes more serious as he meets her eyes. “You were the love of my very  _ very  _ long life. You made all of it worth it. All of it.” 

Emma looks at him and something swells up in her. Pain, love, anguish... and rage. So much rage and it’s all directed at one person.  _ Gold _ . Gold who is making his way down the steps, leaving as if nothing has happened. She stands, turning to face him - the one who just tried to take everything away from her. She feels anger and hatred and it fills her with a strength she never knew she had. 

“Stop!” she demands and Gold freezes in his tracks at the intensity of it. She doesn’t sound like herself anymore. She sounds like something else - something inside of her bursting through. She’s the monster under the bed now and he doesn’t scare her at all. 

With a burst of something that comes from deep within, she sends Gold flying back into the house, his back knocking against the same wall he threw David against not an hour before. “David,” she says and he looks at her, wide eyed in shock and awe. She gives him a look. One that couldn’t be clearer. Finish him. David spares a glance at Killian, who lies breathing shallowly on the street. He nods, storming up the steps and Emma can see the change beginning again, controlled this time. Gold runs for the door, fear in his eyes but, with another burst, Emma slams the door shut in his face, the bolt sliding into place. She can hear his screams, hear him banging against the wood through the growls of the wolf in there with him. And then she only hears silence. 

She turns back to Killian, sitting next to Mary Margaret, knees scrapping on the cement.

“I’m sorry, love,” he says. “I think I’m going to have to break that promise I made you. Please don’t cry,” he says as tears fall down her face. “I’ve been more human this last year than I ever was before I met you, before I met both of you,” he adds as David comes back outside, a blanket wrapped around him this time. “Thank you, for letting me be the person I wanted to be in the end - not the vampire, the human.” 

Emma’s tears are falling freely now as he touches her face one last time before the light goes out of his eyes. Everything stops. Emma can’t feel or think anything except the loss as she falls over his chest. David collapses beside her, gathering Mary Margaret in his arms and sobbing into her shoulder. He’s gone. He’s really gone and now she’s here without him and --” 

“Swan?” Emma whips around, disbelieving. It can’t be. It’s impossible. 

“Killian?” she asks, voice shaking. He stands behind her. His body is still under her hands but he’s right there. Her feet are unsteady as she stands and stumbles towards him. “ _ Killian!” _ she cries, throwing herself at him. He’s here, somehow he’s here and he feels more solid and more real than he ever has before. She kisses him, knocking him back with the force of it and he holds her tight, as shocked as she is. “How?” 

“I - I don’t know,” he says. “Vampires aren’t supposed to have an afterlife.”

“You said it yourself though didn’t you?” David says. “You didn’t die a vampire.”

“I don’t care. I don’t care,” Emma says, planting kisses all over his face, anywhere she can reach. He’s here.

“What’s happening?” Mary Margaret asks. 

David is laughing through his tears as he explains that Killian is there. Mary Margaret frowns. 

Emma laughs. “We’ll have to work on that!” Killian smiles before kissing her again.

 

*** 

Later, when they’ve cleaned up all the mess in the house, seriously debated moving, and Killian is slightly visible to Mary Margaret - who has had one hell of a shock of info in the last few hours - they all pack themselves into the living room, spread out on the couch and the floor. Emma made more hot chocolate and Killian is attempting to pick his mug up. Mary Margaret is teasing David about some of the dog-like habits she should have picked up on and he’s blushing. It’s good for him. To know someone can love both parts of him. That he can be both. 

“What are you smiling at, love?” Killian asks. 

Emma kisses his cheek. “This. All of this. I never had a family before and now I finally do. This is all I ever wanted from life,” she tells them.

“Here here!” David cheers raising his mug and Killian kisses her, smiling. “Hey, guys,” David asks as they set their cups back down. “Not to sound crazy or anything but that door hasn’t always been there right?” 

Four heads turn to the top of the stairs where a bright red door with a swan carved into it now stands. 

“Emma,” Killian says. “That’s it. That’s your door.”

“My door?”

“To the other side. You can move on… if you want to.” His words are encouraging but he holds her ever so slightly tighter as he speaks them. So this was it. Her unfinished business. Family. A real family. A happy one. She looks at the door for a long time then turns back to her friends, her family, her voice peaceful. 

“I can’t go now,” she says. “I’ve got popcorn in the microwave. Can’t trust these two not to let it burn,” she tells Mary Margaret. She’s got more than that. She’s got a whole life to live. 

Sitting here, surrounded by the smiles of the three most important people in her life, two ghost, a werewolf and a human sitting around a coffee table drinking hot chocolate, Emma doesn’t feel odd, she doesn’t feel different or supernatural. She feels alive. It feels normal. It feels everyday. It feels just, human.


End file.
